


Unintended Consequences

by GretchenSinister



Category: Rise of the Guardians (2012)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-08
Updated: 2020-01-08
Packaged: 2021-02-19 00:17:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,172
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22168846
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GretchenSinister/pseuds/GretchenSinister
Summary: Original Prompt: "North catches Jack and Bunny ‘Canoodling’ and isn’t impressed.(OverProtective Father like North, if possible Dissaproving towards anyone in a relationship with his 'Son’)"AU in which North is the human ruler of a kingdom where there used to be lots of fey creatures, but not anymore. The fic touches on why that is, mostly because I really really needed to work out a good reason why North would be protective about this. (There’s Christmas Cookie and Blacksand between the lines here, too!)
Relationships: E. Aster Bunnymund/Jack Frost
Comments: 2
Kudos: 48
Collections: JackRabbit Short Fics





	Unintended Consequences

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on Tumblr on 7/26/2014.

“Accustomed to taking what you want, aren’t you, princeling?” the pooka said as Jack wrapped his legs around him, digging his fingers into his thick fur.   
  
“I’m no princeling,” Jack retorted, pulling the being he’d nicknamed Bunny closer. “I’m a foundling, I told you. Abandoned on the shore of a frozen lake and collected by the chief of this godforsaken land for no good reason I’ve ever been able to see.”  
  
“He’s not keeping a good eye on you, that’s for sure,” Bunny murmured, pressing his nose against Jack’s neck. “You could run into all sorts of beasties, wandering around like you do.”  
  
“Please,” Jack said, “I do believe the beasties have run into me.” He grinned, even though Bunny couldn’t see it. “After all, you’re in _my_ bed.”  
  
“And I'm going to be getting a lot closer to you than that,” Bunny said. Jack giggled wickedly, but before he could do more than that, the heavy oak door crashed open to reveal an incandescently angry Nicholas St. North.  
  
Pookas being what they are, it only took one “Begone, creature!” before Bunny was well and truly gone. It was a trick Jack very much wished he knew himself as he faced his adoptive father with only a pile of blankets between them.  
  
“You,” North said, pointing a huge hand at Jack. “Get dressed. Attempt to preserve the dignity I know you no longer have.”  
  
He turned his back on Jack, but didn’t leave the room. Jack hastily pulled on some clothes, trying desperately to think of something to say that wouldn’t make this worse. Nothing brilliant came to mind, so he decided to try the basic.  
  
“I know that you’re angry about catching me with a pooka, but they _are_ shapeshifters, so you don’t have to worry about me being—”  
  
North turns towards him again, folding his arms. “Do you have any idea what it means for a fey to enter this stronghold? Do you know how many protective spells you undid by bringing that creature here?” North’s frown grows deeper. “Though depending on what you and it have been doing, perhaps the protections were broken on a bed of rotting leaves in the woods! How could you not have noticed? Are you not my son?”  
  
“Of course not!” Jack shouted. “You found me! Abandoned! One of my earliest memories is of you telling that story!”  
  
“Jack.”  
  
Jack looked up to see that the anger in North’s face was rapidly ebbing away to sorrow.  
  
“Jack, I adopted you. That is how that story always ends. You are as much a part of this stronghold as I am. Or at least I thought so. You were named within these walls. All of the ceremonies…I thought they had made you a part of this place. But if you did not notice you were breaking the protections…then, I do not know. I do not know.”  
  
He sat down on the trunk at the end of Jack’s bed. “When I said it is our duty to protect this land and its people, I did not mean things only done by sword or strength. We also protect them from fey—like the pooka. As my heir, your first…lover…affects the balance of the land. It will take great power to keep the land safe for humans now.”  
  
“Why didn’t you tell me this?” Jack asked.   
  
North sighed. “I thought the protections were holding. We hadn’t seen any fey, even in the Wildwood, for so long. Even at Gray Lake. And, Jack, even if you wanted to take a lover to anger me, I assumed you would choose a human.”  
  
“What happens now, then? You forbid me from seeing him? Don’t know if he’d come back, anyway.”  
  
North shook his head. “The fey have easy access to magic. We humans always need time to prepare, and it is never strong enough. I could forbid you from seeing him. You could forbid yourself from seeing him. We could perform a rite to try and make it so. It would not work, not enough. It is…difficult to un-ally yourself from a fey. Perhaps more difficult than I ever suspected.”  
  
Jack sat in silence for a long moment. There was a lightness in his chest at the thought that he would see Bunny again, but he wondered now if the pooka had only gotten close to him to break whatever spells had been keeping the fey out of their land. “You mentioned Gray Lake as if that was where fey were most likely to be seen,” he began, trying to distract himself from such thoughts. “But that was where you found me.”  
  
North nodded. “I have not told you about the spring and summer before the winter I found you. The fey still walked freely with us then. Always, then, life was full of wonder and terror, but in the spring it grew worse than ever before. Everything, everywhere was forced into a constant state of change. A valley one day could be a hill the next, fires would burn cold, honeycombs would be found full of wine, bread would turn to toads, wells would produce only flower petals—it was impossible to live, and we managed to plant little. Few crops managed to survive into the growing season. Magic was thick in the air, but we could not survive off magic. It was beautiful, but it was going to kill us.   
  
“It had never been so bad. I heard…I heard there was a feud in the fey realms. Or a wedding. The person who I heard this from had trouble explaining it to me so that I could understand.” He sighed. “Maybe I should have heeded that.  
  
“Despite the beauty…I and as many people who could be found with a drop of magic in them that tied them to the land joined together to close the paths between the fey realms and ours. And even finding you, I thought it had worked.”  
  
“North.” Jack wrapped his arms around himself. “Dad. What does this have to do with me?”  
  
“As I said,” North said, gently ruffling Jack’s strange, snow-white hair, “it is difficult to un-ally yourself from a fey.”  
  
Jack stared at him. “So, about those protection spells,” he said, “I’ve always felt like I didn’t belong, like I was only being tolerated, and that it wasn’t worth it for me to say anything about it. But since…um, I mean, I thought being with Bunny helped. But if you _do_ care about me…”  
  
“Jack, of course I do. But, if the spells have been trying to keep you in and keep you out at the same time…it would be bad. I am sorry. I did not imagine…but maybe the not imagining is one more unintended consequence. I suppose I must be glad the protections are broken.”  
  
“But what…what happens now? Really?”  
  
“A new age of wonder, maybe,” North said. “And maybe you will be the only one ready to face it.”


End file.
